My grandma was so upset when Al Smith lost the presidency to Herbert Hoover in 1928 she said she’d never vote again. Smith was opposed to Prohibition and spoke directly to women as they were suddenly half the eligible voters in the United States. He chose Senator Joe T. Robinson of Arkansas as his running mate. But it wasn’t enough to beat the second worse U.S. president in history.
Why was Hoover so bad? There was a depression, oxymoronically called The Great Depression, and people had no jobs, no food, no money, no hope. Hoover thought humanitarian relief for his countrymen would endanger capitalism, so that was that. At least the rich were still rich.
When I first realized that politics was as cool as ice skating and pig Latin, my dad had an I Like Ike campaign button on his dresser. Mother’s button said Our Next President Adlai Stevenson.
Dinnertime conversations with mom and dad and grandma were funny and mandatory for my brothers and me. Ike and Adlai meant nothing, Democrat and Republican meant everything.
In 1960 my dad voted for Nixon and was so ashamed of that, he voted for Lyndon Johnson in ’64 but was ashamed of that, too. He had become a real Democrat when JFK averted nuclear war by standing up chest-to-chest against Khrushchev.
In ’76 it was I’m Nuts about Jimmy.
Then dad voted for Bill Clinton in ’92. When a tornado hit Russellville, there was an AP photo of Bill standing with his thumb hooked in his front pants pocket. “That’s the posture of a man who’s genuinely grieving,” my dad said.
Everything was great until one evening on the news, Connie Chung showed Bill Clinton playing golf, and Clinton took a mulligan. That’s when a golfer takes his eye off the ball, flubs a shot, and takes a redo.
“He might not put that on his scorecard,” dad said, “but it’s a stroke and should be counted. That man has no character.”
So it was back to voting for Bob Dole because Bill Clinton took a mulligan.
And grandma did vote again, for Kennedy, and I voted for George McGovern and you never know how it will go, but if you don’t vote at all you’ll have nothing to talk about except lies and shootings.